BARBAROS: someone from a foreign land, whose language you don't understand, sounds like blah blah blah XENOS: someone from a foreign land whose language you do understand, such people are seen as guests KWEREKWERE: a south african word referring to the former, almost always meaning foreign black africans

29 May 2011

it's been a minute...and all i can talk about right now is weed.

so, it's been almost two months since i've posted. the problem when you have a very socially active teenager is that you have to give up a few things in chasing them around.

[for those who follow on and off; my ex's almost-18 year old son lives with me, and it's very likely that i'm going to be named guardian for two of his friends over the next few months. so, unlike a lot of other people who blog about obsessive amounts of travel and politics... i've got very real real-world responsibilities which tend to take precedence over blogging.]

again the inspiration for today's first post of the day is something written over at i'm black and i travel -- he recaps something that i'd heard was coming, but apparently is finally happening: the netherlands is making its coffee shops in the same way as its gay marriage: for locals only. which, of course, is completely stupid and counterproductive, but anyhow.

so they're going to ban foreigners from the coffee shops. reading the article, geert wilders et cie are basically about to put a lot of people into the small-scale drug dealing business, because a good chunk of the american and british tourists are going to want it, regardless.

it's been decriminalised in much of europe, and also in much of canada as well, so i really don't get the willingness of the dutch government to starve itself of revenue from the stupid. it's easy money.

[it's always fun to watch tourists smoking up the last of their stuff in the smoking areas of the train station at schiphol -- and the reaction of the middle american tourists who are there with their kids. not that i've ever done that to taunt such tourists, oh no. nope. never. nooit. geen idee.]

back to the american and british tourists. god, they really act ridiculous with a little booze and weed in them. [young british tourists are, by most accounts, the worst lot in europe. they are tolerated because they tend to have the most money, but still.]

on more than one occasion i would bring my own weed to the bulldog* and mix it with stuff i got there and sit in a back corner and smoke -- not only to hide away from the idiotic anglophones, but because i've bought food at the burger king next door. [there i go on about burger king again.] the staff at the bulldog -- itself a full-service restaurant and bar -- tend to frown on your bringing in your own food. but i look more menacing than most of their bouncers, and plus, i generally order in dutch, so i'm left alone. sometimes it helps to know how to make the "big black man" thing work for you.

*if you must buy weed at the bulldog [while you still can], buy it loose and roll it yourself. their prepared joints are far more tobacco than cannabis entirely because of the aforementioned anglophone tourists getting too high on smoking it pure. europeans tend to smoke their joints mixed with tobacco, which is NASTY to me, since i don't smoke cigarettes.

[wow, i'd made a lengthy edit to this, and blogger ate it. fuck. very unhappy about that.]

kwerekwere

i'm a black foreigner living in cape town, south africa. generally speaking, black foreigners aren't really liked by south africans; however, i don't tend to hang with south africans that much anymore -- the collective emotional damage is too draining. this blog is about my political musings and travel updates, when i can get around to them.
in these pages, i'll share my travels and the political realities in many of the places i've been.